Dumpster Dive for the environment?
Dumpster diving influencers have been raising environmental awareness on YouTube and TikTok
By Sabina Hung ♻️♻️
From a bunch of trash, the person in the video spotted a seemingly brand new Dyson Airwrap that’s been all the rage on the internet. Captioned “INSANE hidden jackpot dumpster diving at Sephora,” the video received 2 million views and 123k likes as of pressed time. A simple YouTube search of “dumpster diving” could also bring up thousands of similar videos. Why is this happening?
Overproduction has been thought to be the root cause of the overwhelming amount of usable goods ending up in dumpsters. Because most goods and services are created to lose value over time, consumers are forced into the cycle of disposability thereby producing more waste.
Experts and activists have been coming up with ways to tackle this problem in the past decade. Different solutions are suggested to address different kinds of waste. For instance, there is Too Good To Go to fight food waste from stores and restaurants and Misfit market to rescue “imperfect” organic groceries. Some fashion brands have also taken the initiative to start trade-in programs to revamp pre-loved products and put them back to the market.
Apart from these alternative business models, there are also people who are trying to fight the out-of-control consumerism on an individual level by adopting freeganism. The term “freegan,” borrowed from the word “vegan,” but goes beyond rejecting animal products and resists consumerism for sustainability.
A website run by Adam Weissman, freegan.info, gathers information for freegans. From where to scavenge and which communities to connect with to how to incorporate freeganism into different aspects of your life, the website provides a complete outlook for what to expect for prospective freegans or new coming freegans to the city
Although the influencers did not call themselves freegans, their videos have been drawing attention to the overproduction and overconsumption of goods in the U.S. Ella Rose for example, channel handle @GlamourDDive, has 60 shorts and 147 videos of the dumpster diving at retail stores such as T.J.Maxx, Bath and Body Works, Ulta Beauty, Lululemon etc. Anna Sacks, too, @thetrashwalker on TikTok, whose video went viral in 2021 for exposing Coach destroying unsold items instead of donating to maintain its brand value.
Due to a surprisingly large number of videos returned from searching “dumpster diving” on YouTube, I was curious to find out whether dumpster diving has been a trending activity.
Dumpster diving YouTube videos have been on the rise
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2023
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Video titles contained
“Dumpster Diving” spiked in 2023
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2018
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2017
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130 counts
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2023
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2022
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2021
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2020
Video titles contained
“Dumpster Diving” spiked in 2023
🗑🗑🗑
2019
🗑🗑
2018
🗑
12
2017
10
20
40
70
110
130 counts
30
50
90
🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑
141
2023
🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑🗑
2022
🗑🗑🗑🗑
2021
🗑🗑🗑🗑
2020
Video titles contained
“Dumpster Diving” spiked in 2023
🗑🗑🗑
2019
🗑🗑
2018
🗑
12
2017
10
20
40
70
110
130 counts
30
50
90
This data collected from YouTube Data API shows that the number of videos about dumpster diving increased significantly in 2023. Although this is not an accurate proxy for whether dumpster diving as an activity has been growing, from the number of views and likes the videos got, it is likely that they have received significant amount of attention.